


Remember Their Sins No More

by Runeless



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Lesbian Couple, Canon WLW couple, Earning Your Happy Ending, F/F, F/M, Forgiveness, Gen, Happy Ending, Love, Navigating relationships, Post Season 5, Post-Canon, Pregnancy, Queen Angella Rescue, RUN CHILDREN, RUN FROM THE SPOILERS, Redemption, Spoilers, Spoilers for Season 3, Spoilers for Season 5, happiness, marriage proposals, relationships, spoilers everywhere
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:02:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24278548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Runeless/pseuds/Runeless
Summary: For I will forgive their wickedness.( Catra, afterwards, and Adora, and earning the right to be forgiven by yourself; how a demon and the devil she once served might ascend, and be at peace, and how an angel might be rescued.)
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra), Angella/Micah (She-Ra), Bow/Glimmer (She-Ra), Entrapta/Hordak (She-Ra), Huntara/Perfuma (She-Ra), Mermista/Sea Hawk (She-Ra), Perfuma/Scorpia (She-Ra), Scorpia/Perfuma/Huntara
Comments: 42
Kudos: 303





	Remember Their Sins No More

**Remember Their Sins No More**

A year passes.

Things settle down. Adora hangs up the sword- a deliberate choice. She has been through enough. Let others lift the burden of heroics; for the first time in her life, Adora now knows that she does not have to measure her sense of self only in the blood she sheds in defense of others, that her worth is not tied up only in how much she can sacrifice for others. She has value in and of hereself. Adora shall be Adora alone, She-Ra no longer, though the transformation is still inside her. She has saved Etheria three times, and the universe entire twice; it is now time for others to take up the standard.

Others do so, which eases Adora's heart, which feels guilty for having what she truly wants; it puts her at ease, to know that just because _she_ has stopped, heroics still happen. Into the vacuum of She-Ra do others step, the great vigil kept; Adora's candle has blown out, but with it she lit a billion fires, which in turn light candles of their own, and so the fire of her heroism is made eternal.

Etheria sees a lot of space travel these days; the Star Siblings, alongside Wrong Hordak, dismantling Horde Prime's horrible empire and rebuilding worlds once ruined... and reintroducing _magic_ to the cosmos, magic Prime had destroyed because he could not stand the _chaos_ of it. Into a universe plagued by Prime's light and law, made too orderly, does Etheria introduce darkness and chaos, rebalancing the scales.

It is Mermista who leads the charge, alongside Sea Hawk, and that's a surprise; Catra is always weirded out when she hears travelers talk of the duo. Mermista, of course, is a legend, but Mermista always had greatness in her; the stranger tale is that of her husband, the duo having finally gotten married rather recently.

In the year since Prime's defeat, Sea Hawk has become more than anyone, even himself, might have suspected. He pilots a new ship, the _Solar Sailor_ , and perhaps Etheria was just too small for the boisterous sailor; the universe, though, the great ocean of space, now that fits, it is just his size. He is famous now, his great spaceship landing and bringing his mighty Mermista and Etherian magic to worlds in desperate need of miracle. Remnants of Prime's empire fall to the laughing man and his sword, and his crew- composed of those he and his wife have freed- are loyal to their madcap captain to a fault, as he brings Etherian seawater to other worlds and, with just a few drops, converts their oceans into fonts of magic.

Where the _Solar Sailor_ goes, the magic of worlds is returned to them, and Sea Hawk is, at last, as cool as he thinks he is.

Perhaps the only thing Sea Hawk needed was a ship he couldn't set on fire.

( He tried a lot, though, early on.)

Catra is the one who chases those tales, talks of them with Glimmer, who finds them terribly exciting; Adora waves them off, only wants to know that her friends are okay. Heroics hold no wonder for her now; Adora is content to be small, to just be a person at last.

Catra has to admit, there is something to be said for their quiet, lazy lifestyle, for this humble kind of living. It is... peaceful.

Not like they have anything better to do. Neither have life skills that aren't related to “go kick someone's ass”; they were raised to be child soldiers, and as adults find they are ill-equipped to do anything else. Adora might make a half-decent bureaucrat thanks to Shadow Weaver's insistence on paperwork, but Catra doesn't even have that, and for all that Adora clings to a dream of normality, even she doesn't want to do _that_ for a living.

The last year has been an exercise in frustration and personal growth, as well as bothering everyone they (by which Catra means Adora) know, in order to pick up life lessons that Horde indoctrination and three years of fighting a war could not possibly give you, things the duo now want.

Netossa and Spinnerella in particular are valuable, the married duo teach Catra and Adora all kinds of things. Catra even ends up, to her own surprise, sliding into friendship with them; they have tried to kill each other, a fact that sits like a tombstone between Catra and the other Princesses, but Catra had no personal animosity with Spinnerella or Netossa either one. They have fought, but their battles were merely results originating from them being on different sides; they didn't know each other at all. It is easy enough to forgive each other, and they even joke about it, as they grow more comfortable with each other.

From the older duo does Catra and Adora learn how to figure out the little things of life; cleaning schedules, how to cook, how to decide who does the cooking and the cleaning, which was the most vital part, given the control issues both of them ahve.

Adora takes to cooking with gusto, the hands that have mostly destroyed eager to learn new ways of creation; generally Catra cleans, with Melog complaining about things behind them.

( Sometimes Catra thinks of that, how _backwards_ it is; all her life, Adora has been cleaning up Catra's messes, not the other way around, but in these long days of peace, here she is, little duster in hand twice a week. They both like a home that's a bit clean, but not overly so; the Fright Zone had too many excesses, had rooms that were half grime and rooms that were clean as a guru's conscience, and the former soldiers want a place not so caught in extremes.)

When the tornado princess and her net-slinging wife restart their game nights, Catra finds herself with an invitation, and so long as her and Netossa don't get _too_ into it, their lovers indulge their competitive streaks.

Catra's grateful for their friendship, for helping them navigate this complex relationship. The first hurdle of loving Adora had been getting it off the ground; the second, third, and fourth hurdles appear to be _living_ with it. Being in a relationship with Adora is so different from pining for her, and when they argue, it is _far_ too close to how they fought; it scares Catra, that she'll fall back into old, terrible ways.

They both fear that result; the duo _hate_ arguing with each other, it brings up memories so strong and so ugly that it throws them off for days every time it happens.

Thus they learn how to be careful with each other, how to approach the hardest things by being cautious. Whenever something emotional comes up, something that might make Catra's claws pop out or enrage Adora, they do not speak of it but leave written notes, giving each other time to process and come to a rational conclusion. Writing it down makes every disagreement smaller, somehow, makes it so it can fit into their lives without crushing them; and they try not to be angry with each other.

It's not perfect, but they've been working on it.

Between navigating this relationship and becoming friends with Princesses, Catra has no time for a job. Neither does Adora. It's a good thing Queen Glimmer has given Adora a retirement, paying her equivalent to a retired General of the highest rank; despite herself Catra rather likes that solution, there is something elegant there. The greatest hero of Brightmoon, and recognized as standing with the most worthy of the nation. She... likes that.

It's enough to live on more than comfortably, and that's not even considering that Glimmer provides them room in the Castle, free of charge; Glimmer has few friends, and it is her own little piece of selfishness that she refuses to let Adora go too far from her, as she will admit in a rare, Bow-prompted moment of honesty.

Adora's okay with that, which means Catra is, too; as Adora puts it, her and Glimmer and Bow have done too much together, been through too much, for them to break apart. Even when they don't actively seek each other out for weeks at a time, they slip back into each other's lives like swords into scabbards; it's almost... bizarre, to see Adora with the two people she is closest to. It is Catra she loves- but Catra won't pretend she doesn't feel a little jealous, every time.

It's okay. It's something else she's working on.

( She left a note, the first time, explaining her envy and how embarrassed and ashamed she felt, knowing Adora would find it while Catra retreated to their bedroom, wrestling with herself; and Adora left a note for her, too, and they talked it out in writing before they did it in person. Just another day in their lives.)

It helps that the two are so nice. Glimmer and Catra are too much alike in personality to not like each other, and Bow.... Bow might be the nicest person Catra has _ever_ known, his niceness rivals Scorpia's. If he and Scorpia had a child, the kid's niceness would be too much for the world to handle; they'd end up with a religion on their hands, if the two had a kid. Bow's with Glimmer and Scorpia's with Perfuma, though, so that terrible future has been avoided.

...Though Perfuma was also with Huntara, apparently, Catra's seen her at some of the balls with both those big women on her arms, delighted and cheerful and both her titans looking cheerfully confused.

Flower girl had game, apparently.

( Adora had stared with a stupid, delighted look on her face at Perfuma and her two muscular beauties, until Catra waved her hand in front of her eyes; she'd almost gotten the couch that night, until Adora... _convinced_ her otherwise, the blonde's engine running hot after the party.)

Really, the only time Glimmer and Bow have been a problem for Catra is when they got married.

It hadn't been the fighting over who got Adora as their best man; Catra had _absolutely_ loved that fight, had cheerfully escalated it for her own amusement at times. ( Glimmer won, due to sheer willpower.) It wasn't the long list of arguments about what the wedding would be like. ( Bow won most of those, due to common sense.)

No... it was the question Adora asked her, on one of those little pieces of paper, after the wedding was over. (Micah, George and Lance had wept through the whole thing; it turned out that Micah got along _great_ with Bow's dads, as they were all the exact same kind of terrible dad-joke dads. Catra pitied Bow and Glimmer's eventual children.)

_Do you want to get married?_

...Catra wrote her reply back.

_No._

It hurt Adora, and they talked about that.

But even then, Catra didn't tell her _why_.

-

The secret is this:

Catra doesn't deserve this happiness.

Normally that wouldn't bother her, but as she is rubbing off on Adora, so is Adora rubbing off on Catra. For all that Adora has put down the blade, her inner goodness shines through; Adora is gentle, kind, loving, brave. It is no secret to either of them that the paper notes exist because Catra is half likely to go off at the smallest provocation; it is rare for Adora to be the one whose heart the notes are protecting.

Catra admires that, and as she becomes a better person- as she comes to know the Alliance, these people she has hurt so badly- she finds that Adora's sense of _responsibility_ is rubbing off on her.

Responsibility... for her mistakes. So many mistakes... so many wrongs. She needs to apologize to Scorpia again, in full and in the right way this time, she needs to visit the towns she either ruined or tried to ruin and donate her efforts to their reconstruction. She needs to make it _right_.

But a single fact stops all her dreams of redemption, the great and terrible deed she did, the thing that makes her unworthy of Adora's love. She thinks of it, often.

It's hard not to. Queen Angella has a huge statue in Brightmoon now, watching eternally over the land she, herself, once eternally watched.

Catra thinks of that statue a lot, these days. She hurt a lot of people, but most of them lived, have a chance to recover.

But not Angella.

( She has nightmares about it; about the portal, about darkness covering her body on the right side, about a hatred so powerful that she was willing to die just to hurt Adora.)

Bow holds out hope that they can save her, and it is a side project he works on that he hasn't told Glimmer about. Angella's not dead, he insists; she is trapped between dimensions, which is similar, but not the same. He told Catra about it, having figured it out from the way she looks at Angella's statue, sometimes... people forgot that, of all the Best Friend Squad, Bow was always the wisest.

Catra thinks about his words a lot, after Adora asks her to marry her. She thinks about it... a lot.

A dead person is just gone. Even Adora cannot rescue the dead. But someone who was trapped could be set free, even if their cage was big as the universe; you just needed a key.

The idea circles in her head until it begins to ache. If she saves Angella- then that's her greatest wrongdoing undone, the portal that could have done so much harm. Flipping the portal's switch was a _mistake_ , she doesn't have the words to explain it better than that, even to herself. If she can pull Angella alive out of it, then... then maybe she won't have to think about it so much, maybe she won't have these nightmares Adora shakes her awake from, maybe she'll stop fearing that she'll see broken darkness all over her right side every time she looks in a mirror.

Maybe if she saves an angel, she'll stop feeling like a demon.

( She likes that; there is a poetry there. There is _weight_ to it. It feels heavy enough that... that it might be able to weigh her down, and keep all her terrors from taking her away.)

These thoughts hurt her so much- and one day, when they hurt _too_ much, she finally sends a letter to Entrapta.

-

Hordak and Entrapta have been quite busy. Hordak has been working to help his people- both his fellow clones and all the people Prime hurt, who are kin of his in the sense that Prime hurt everyone around him, for centuries- is hurting people even now, the poison of his philosophy a lingering wound in the soul of many planets.

Hordak does not lead his fellow clones. That job has fallen on Wrong Hordak, who preaches with the passion of the converted, who has become the great champion of the deprogramming that frees his kin, the sweet and kindly man who now leads them as they dismantle Prime's great empire and start the long process of rebuilding the worlds their creator ruined with their brainwashed selves. Wrong Hordak, born to serve Prime, who has turned his life around to such a degree that it staggers the mind- a thing almost as surprising as him keeping the moniker they originally saddled him with, proud of the name his first friends gave him.

( Ridiculous man, with a sweetness so strong it ached; being in his presence now, after all his good deeds, is almost actively painful to Catra. If any man in all the universe has the holiness Prime arrogantly assumed for himself, it is that gentle soul, and Catra irrationally fears that his touch will burn her demon's skin.)

But his leadership is supported by Hordak and Entrapta on Etheria, the two brilliant souls the scientific dynamo that supplies him with the inventions he needs. In between their work on whatever it is that Wrong Hordak needs these days, Hordak works rebuilding areas of Etheria he helped destroy; the Horde did great harm, and all Hordak's suffering did not wipe it away. They work, and are together, in love and at peace, though they are not married.

( Catra's not sure the idea would occur to either of them. She's not sure why the idea occurred to her, except... except marriage is all she can think about, now, after Adora's little piece of paper.)

She sent a letter to Dryll; Entrapta answered back in the affirmative, and so Catra arrives, to crave a boon of two people she tried to murder. With Hordak, that doesn't hurt so bad, given the harm he'd inflicted on her and his own attempts to kill her; with Entrapta, it nearly chokes Catra, she finds it hard to look at the tech genius.

The Crypto Castle looks much the same, save that it has a starport atop it now. Relief floods Catra when she doesn't see the unique sails of the _Solar Sailor_ above the castle; this will be easier if it just the three of them. The only ship in the port is Darla, resting at ease.

The castle's staff lets her in, three chefs who make Entrapta's tiny food, though a few of Hordaks' fellow clones have joined as well, those who found that they had served too long to entirely escape a desire to be subordinate. It's something they're working on, Hordak slowly introducing them to their freedom, breaking their chains piece by piece.

( Everyone's working on themselves these days, this is what Adora bought the world with her heroics; Catra hopes only that she can do this, can fix this thing she did, so she can start working on herself, too, and become a woman who might be worthy of Adora.)

“ Your letter was vague,” Hordak begins without preamble when she enters their inner sanctum. He is facing her, and he is being particularly unsubtle about the very large arm cannon he is working on- one that has a shield on it, this time. Round two will go differently, should Catra attack him. Entrapta waves at her cheerfully from atop Emily, using the bot as a footstool while she works on a starship engine taller than she is. “ I imagine you have to have a good reason to bother me and Entrapta, given our... complicated histories.”

Hordak has not forgiven her, which Catra is glad for; it's nice to have someone who feels about Catra the way she feels about herself.

“ The best reason imaginable,” she says, and it's supposed to come out cocky and confident but Adora's been rubbing off on her; it comes out honestly, instead, and so it sounds small and sad. “ I... I need your help to save Queen Angella.”

There is a pause, then, even Entrapta stops what she is doing, turns to her.

“ I... Catra, she's trapped between dimensions, maybe dead,” Entrapta answers quietly, and it is a sign of how dangerous this will be that she is not immediately leaping to tech solutions, that she is _not_ excited for this. She frowns, a strange expression on the hyperactive princess. “ We would have to repeat the experiment, and even on a localized scale, the danger presented...”

“ Queen Angella...” Hordak says, in quiet, thoughtful tones.

“ It's the great thing I did that I can't undo,” Catra tells them, and she tries not to cry, she tries not to let her desperation leak into her words. “ I... every time Glimmer hugs me, or we talk, I think of the portal. Every time I try to be like Adora, I...”

She pauses, wrestles with her words. Every time she kisses Adora, she thinks of Angella, every time Bow teases her she thinks of her. Catra has done so much, and they have _forgiven_ her so much... but she doesn't deserve to be forgiven for this.

Not yet.

But before she can swallow her pride and spit out the truth, Hordak draws the venom out for her.

“ I understand,” he says. “ I see the things I've done, too; and the list is longer, for me.”

That's an understatement... but Catra just nods her head.

( Salineas still won't let him in; Mermista's quiet, understated way of telling him that he is not forgiven, that she will _never_ forgive. He accepts it. That he has changed his ways does not mean he was _not_ a monster.)

“ Can it be done safely, Entrapta?” Hordak asks, turning to his love.

She pauses, mind running over ancient calculations. “ I... there's no way to be _safe_ ,” she answers. “ There are ways to _localize_ the harm- part of the damage was because the Sword was used. All that power, made the range huge. If we used a different power source, could limit range, make a portal that only risked killing the users and us.”

She gives Hordak a calculating gaze. “ I... do you need this?” she asks, and Catra realizes, with a sense of wonder, that this is how _they_ navigate their relationship; they have hurdles of their own to jump over, this technological genius who is so bad with people, this failed clone and failed overlord who nonetheless was the first successfully free spirit among his brethren.

( That Hordak did evil with his free will did not change that he was _free_.)

Hordak thinks it over a moment. “ I... might,” he admits. “ A question, first.”

He turns his head to Catra.

“ Why now?” Hordak asks Catra. She can't look him in the eye, she looks away.

“ Adora,” she says, finally, and it's all the answer she can give him.

His eyes grow surprisingly gentle.

( He has never forgotten Adora saving him; he felt the raw power of her, when she touched him to burn up Horde Prime's soul... and he felt her shield him from that purging glare, she burned the devil out of him but made the deliberate choice to spare _him_. His kindness in taking in a helpless child was returned to him, all those years later, and he has not forgotten it.)

“ I think I might need this,” he admits to his lab partner. Her face is still pensive, still uncertain.

( Catra is on a course of action that _Entrapta_ thinks is a bad idea. May whatever Gods exist protect her stupid ass; that has to be the clearest warning sign any divinity has ever sent, and she has no choice but to ignore it.)

Catra adds whatever weight her voice can to the equation in Entrapta's head.

“ Help me.”

She wishes she could say she did not beg... but she is trying not to lie to herself, anymore.

Hordak turns to his wife, whose hands clench in worry.

“ If you want to do this,” Entrapta says, still cautious. She alone has no guilt of the portal; she tried to stop it, _would_ have stopped it but for Catra, and so she alone is sinless among them in this circumstance. Not sinless entirely- many reminders Entrapta has received over the years of the ease of her defection, of those killed by her robots- but when it comes to the portal, Entrapta stands with Adora; she has no responsibility here. She tried to _stop_ it.

“ Then... I have an old friend that might help,” she says. “ Give us a month, and then come back.”

-

The old friend is Darla, the spaceship, because of _course_ it is. It is Hordak and Entrapta's personal ship now, and Catra ponders the ship's absurd history as Entrapta and Hordak haul tools aboard, having spent the last month working out the math. This was once Mara's personal ship- Mara, last of the She-Ra before Adora herself, savior of the planet. Then it was Adora's ship, used to save the universe from Horde Prime.

( To save her, specifically; guilt curls in her guts. So much that could have went wrong, just to save _her_ worthless hide. She... she must make amends. She must be worthy of all that has been done for her.)

Now... now it was basically Entrapta and Hordak's yacht for when they felt like gallivanting around the stars. A far less noble job... but also probably less stressful. The ship was just like her Adora, Catra thinks; Darla had earned her retirement, too. It makes her almost fond of the ship.

...What the hell was wrong with her, that she was empathizing with a _machine_? Teeth and tail, she needed to get this done before she went mad.

Everything's ready.

Catra steps up the loading ramp, and they take off.

-

In Brightmoon, Adora awakens to a slip of paper next to her, detailing all the truth Catra could not tell her, and a Melog who had been locked in a side room.

Panicking, Adora calls for Swift Wind, frees Melog, and the trio race across Etheria.

When Adora reaches the Crypto Castle on Swift Wind, with Melog running on the ground behind her, she is only fast enough that she sees the ship blast off into space through the frightened tears in her eyes.

-

...Being back on Darla is weird. This is where it began, her transformation- and... and it kind of fits, it settles her a little bit. This is where she started over again, once. Now... now she can take the next step, and on Darla again.

The plan is simple. Darla will be the power source for the portal. The portal _should_ go to the same place- the place between worlds- and they have it locked onto the Moonstone's energy signature, which they got from Bow's own technological efforts- Entrapta had claimed she needed it for a different project, and he'd handed it over.

They will activate the portal, and even if everything goes absolutely wrong, it will only wipe out an area of space a few hundred miles in width- no distance, in space, and they are going to an empty pocket to do this at all. If mistakes are being made, then only they will pay for it. Fair enough, as regarded Hordak and Catra; it will atone for sins on their part.

Entrapta, though, will be an innocent victim, and both Catra and Hordak are tired of harming bystanders. They tried to convince her not to go- but she wouldn't listen, gave them a multitude of reasons.

The last she gave was the one that made them shut up.

“ If this fails, then I will die with him, whether I am here or on Etheria,” she'd said, and that... well. Catra didn't have an argument for that, and Hordak had looked at her, ears lowered, like she was everything he'd ever wanted... probably because she _was_.

That's the worst-case scenario. Mara's ship doesn't have even a tenth the power the Sword had, so the portal it makes won't last as long, either- the link will last only a few minutes before it grows so unstable it cannot be maintained, not without danger. Catra will have to dive in and dive back out, quick as lightning; they'll shut the portal down from their end once time has been hit, Catra out or not.

Okay. No pressure. No... no pressure.

( She swallows heavy against her fears.)

The world between worlds isn't real, is a not-place made up of zeroes... Entrapta uses a lot of words to confuse the hell out of her, and Hordak is able to translate. The world between worlds has no definite shape, takes its shape based on who is observing it... it is a world where thought has more weight than gravity. Because it has no natural shape, it simply conforms to the thoughts of its visitors.

...That is not a helpful thing to know, given Catra cannot control herself- that is the start of all her problems, that she cannot control herself- but it's what she's got, so she'll work with it.

It will take two days travel to get there. They have food and supplies, and distress beacons should things go wrong. They're ready for disaster to strike before they attempt to strike disaster of their own free will.

What Catra's not ready for is Entrapta, who appears to have picked up an inquisitive streak about relationships while exploring her own with Hordak.

“ So is it weird to have sex with Adora when you had the same foster mom?” she asks, and Hordak's jaw drops even as Catra's mind tries to reset itself.

“ I- _what?!?_ ”

-

The two days pass quickly after that, partly because she's antsy, partly because she's spending so much time _not_ talking to Entrapta. Hordak repeatedly apologizes for her antics; he is socially awkward for a multitude of reasons, but even he knows that his wife is going too far.

Perhaps this is Entrapta's idea of petty revenge; her smirk is surprisingly mischievous, and it occurs to Catra that one does not have to be good with people to be good at _messing_ with people.

It's... kind of fun, almost. Reminds Catra of the days when her, Scorpia, and Entrapta were one group, before she ruined that with her own hands... and it's easier to think of that, now. It feels... smaller.

She's taking the first steps to fixing her mistake; it makes it all just a little easier.

( Catra had never known how much a little might help, before now; but she finds the distance is infinite, between zero and any positive number, no matter how small.)

The moment of truth arrives. The door is opened, a hole in the world, right there in Darla's hold. Entrapta gives her a device that will keep her lucid, a thing she'd apparently made the _first_ time this happened; it fits neatly into her ear. It will also keep track of time for her, so she knows how long she has before the portal collapses and she, too, is trapped.

It is time.

For the second time, Catra dives into a world of her own delusion.

( But for the right reasons this time, she hopes, as the sea of dreams overwhelms her, Entrapta's gift the life preserver that keeps her head just above water.)

-

Catra was expecting many things; the Fright Zone, a ghost of Adora, maybe even visions of her childhood like she saw when Light Hope was messing with her and her love. Hell, a dragon, or whatever the First One's last great defense of the Heart had been, that thing Shadow Weaver had died to kill.

( Catra could not process that last moment, and neither could Adora. Who knew what was going on in her head? Perhaps the last breath of Light Spinner- or perhaps a sense of guilt... or even simply a desire to fuck with her adopted daughters one more time. Who knew?)

She did not expect to be kicked in the face.

She is under attack from the second she enters the area. She doesn't even get a great look at her opponent, running and stumbling the way she hasn't in a year- and wow, people go soft _fast_ in a year's time. The most running Catra has done has been jogs with Melog, who likes running and roaming over her new world, and now she has a chance to be grateful for it, it's the only thing that's kept her legs from turning to jelly. The thing attacking her is _fast_ , blindingly so, it dashes and dances around her at such high speed that she cannot keep up. It's just a shadow in the corners of her eyes.

Her body is weak, but her mind is sharper and less clouded than it ever was back in those days; she glances around, tries to figure out where she is. The sky is all black clouds, like when she invaded Brightmoon the first time. Horde equipment lays heaped in junk piles about her, forming a circular arena of some kind- like the one in Elberon where she tortured Adora. Lots of nooks and crannies for her attacker to hide in, the way Catra once hid in the pipes and plumbing of the Fright Zone.

Catra ducked a kick she heard coming but did not quite see, her enemy gone even as she glances back- and pauses.

She's standing on solid stone- the floor, it's made up of Angella's statue in Brightmoon, but rendered huge. Her folded arms make up one wall of the arena, and behind Catra is the head. The face is different, pain on the carved face, mouth is open in a silent scream- and inside that mouth, floating quietly and silently, protected in a faltering shield made out of the last of the magic inside her, is Angella. Some last ditch attempt to save herself.

Catra tries to run to her, and a thrown stone clocks her in the back of the head, sending her falling. Her timer helpfully informs her that she has ten minutes left.

Reflexes are slow, but her mind hasn't quite caught up to her lack of speed yet- she keeps _trying_ to react at the tremendous speed she once had, stumbling over herself. Muscles protest. Joints scream. She's young, but she hasn't been in a serious fight in over a year, and three years of war take their toll on the youngest body; old wounds flare up, and she almost screams when her enemy strikes at a rib that never quite recovered from Adora slamming her into stone at Brightmoon.

( The way that Adora still winces if someone touches her back in certain spots, the scars of long claw marks that ache when pressure is applied. Catra apologized to her through the notes, once.)

“ Hey, Catra,” a voice she _knows_ growls from above her.

She flips over, and...

And there she is.

Half of her is blackened darkness, her spirit fusing with the very concept of ruin itself. The other half is Catra, as she was two years ago- as she was when she flipped the portal's switch. Lean, angry, mean, with drives pulling her in so many directions she stayed in one spot, caught and trapped.

This is _her_. This is who she was.

... _Shit._

“ Hello, uhh, _me_ ,” Catra said, rising up. “ ...What is going on here?”

“ One moment that never ends,” the other Catra growled. “ The one you keep thinking about. Which is funny; you've done so much. Salineas was destroyed at your command. You don't remember that, do you? Mermista's people, the bodies of soldiers and civilians alike floating belly-up into the deep blue sea, chum for sharks. Do you recall?”

Every time she saw Mermista. “ No,” she says, because Catra has not changed enough over the past year, still reflexively denies and fights.

Her enemy makes her pay, slugs her twice quickly in the guts with her deadly swift hands, and Catra cannot counter. She staggers back.

“ Dumb luck you didn't get anyone at the Prom- a happy little dance, until Catra walked in and ruined lives. Some of them still lay awake at night shivering, because of what you did, it replays in their minds over and over again. Trauma can come even without a physical wound to accompany it. How can you live with yourself?”

Her other self is all smiles and rage... and fighting talent. She kicks her again. The timer helpfully beeps. Seven minutes.

...How is she going to do this? She glances back- Angella, still alive, the portal still stable before her, but an enemy between.

This world is just her mind, though, right? That's what Entrapta said. This isn't some remnant of herself stuck here all these years... this is... this is part of her.

( _Guilt,_ some inner voice whispers. _Her name is Guilt._ )

She cannot change the past.

( She can't win a fistfight with her. Not in the time she has, maybe not ever.)

She can't reason with her.

( What can she say? She didn't mean it? Oh yes she did. She meant it more than she's ever meant anything she's ever done... save when she told Adora she loved her.)

Catra wants to laugh. She has traveled two days into deepest space just to face the guilt she ran away from home to deal with.

...Her guilt.

There's an idea, a stupid idea, Catra has been in Brightmoon too fucking long. She has absorbed too much of their softness, she has _gone soft_ , and she is not so removed from her Horde life for that thought to come without some sense of _shame_. She... she has an idea, that you would only see in the fairy tales of Brightmoon, in the whispers of that happy land's hopes and dreams.

...But for all that it is optimist, hopeful, sickly-sweet... it feels like it has _weight_ to it, the way this whole plan does... and this is all her own head, right? Maybe that'll translate across the distance.

Maybe the only way out is through.

Catra works up the words to say, licks her lips, and finally, says the words that sum up all her hopes.

“ I forgive you,” Catra said to herself.

“ No, you don't,” the other Catra replied- but she stops attacking her. Catra has to bet her belief on it, even as the timer beeps, five minutes. “ You can't forgive yourself _anything_ , Catra. You never could forgive other people and you cannot forgive yourself.”

“ Maybe I should,” Catra said. “ I forgive you.”

She advanced on the spirit.

“ Stay away!” the shadow howled- but it did not move its feet. It could not run from her, just as Catra could not run from it; they were the same being, one past, one present, both making up part of whatever the future Catra would be.

“ I forgive you,” Catra said again, and tried to believe it, tried to believe it as hard as she could.

The shadow began to fray, at the edges, where it was weakest.

“ We're monsters,” her shadow- her guilt- said.

“ We're trying not to be,” Catra replied.

“ Can't change the past,” one of them said, and they knew not which.

“ That's why it's so important to change _today_ ,” the other said.

“ I want to marry Adora,” one blurted out.

“ If we stop this- if we are forgiven- then we can.”

“ Happily ever after, it's all I want, but I don't deserve it...”

Catra drew close, close enough to claw, to hit, to kick, to punch.

“ Maybe we... just have to... have to do what we can, to be worthy of it.”

She took her shadow into her arms, gently, and hugged her.

“ I forgive you,” Catra whispered to herself.

And with a sigh, her shadow melted back into her, and there was just one Catra there, who had pulled the switch on the portal- and who had come back to make it right.

( A person is a complicated thing.)

She turned, and wiped her eyes- one of them had been crying. Both, maybe. She wasn't sure.

She ran over to the mouth, to Angella's faltering shield, and when she reached down and touched it, it collapsed. Without the glow around her, it was easier to see how _bad_ she looked- she was pale, wan, weak. One wing had turned black, the way half of Catra had, this world infecting her very essence.

But she was still breathing, and her heart still beat. Better than Catra had feared; some part of her had worried that this would be a retrieval mission for a corpse. Angella is alive.

The timer beeps. _Three minutes!_

Catra is not the Catra she once was, but she can put on one last burst of speed.

Catra runs with the angel in her arms, and at the last moment, leaps past the barriers between worlds, to land heavy, safe and alive, on Mara's ship.

“ She's back!” Hordak announces uselessly; Entrapta is already shutting the gate.

“ Portal's closed- no backlash- everything's fine!” Entrapta announces from the front of the ship. This is also useless; Catra knows it worked because her head and her asshole are attached in the usual manner, and not scattered over miles of deep space. “ Everything worked out within parameters, the universe barely even noticed we were gone! Go Darla!”

“ She's weak,” Catra says, as she rolls off of Angella. “ We think to pack medical equipment on this tub?”

“ Don't call Darla a tub!” comes Entrapta's strangled cry from the front.

“ We did,” Hordak says. “ Part of the things we got from Prince Bow included reservoirs of Moonstone magic and medical equipment. We set up a makeshift hospital room- let's get her there now.”

“ Set course for home, Darla,” Entrapta says, and the three ferry Angella to a Dryll bed hastily grabbed as a precaution by Hordak, and one she's set up they gently pour Moonstone-infused water down her throat, then leave her to her rest, Hordak watching over her as Darla takes them home and Catra goes off to sleep, the portal trip exhausting mentally and physically.

-

Queen Angella awoke in terrible pain. Where- where was she? A ceiling of metal she did not recognize, an uncomfortable bed beneath her... Hordak over her.

“ Ah!” she screamed, and tried to flop away from him, all grace lost in her weakness and surprise.

( For all that she chose to die as the bravest of heroes, she was, in her heart of hearts, still a bit spineless, and easily spooked.)

But Hordak does not give her a wicked conqueror's smile, nor does he gloat. He does not hurt her.

Instead, his ears drooped, he seemed almost... _ashamed_ of her reaction, and in his hands was no weapon or implement of torture. He held nothing at all, save a small book he had apparently been reading- one of a series of romance novels from Brightmoon that Angella vaguely recognized, though the number was higher than she recalled.

“ Be at ease, your majesty,” Hordak said, his tone quiet and gentle, not the barking thing she had heard across a dozen battlefields. “ You are safe.”

“ Where am I?” she asked- croaked out, her throat hurt. Her _everything_ hurt. Her mind scrambled. She had...

She had been pulling out the Sword. Where the hell was she now?

“ What is this?” she asked.

“ It has been over two years,” he began, gently. Angella wondered at that. When had Hordak ever been gentle? “ So much has _changed_ , your Majesty. You are onboard Darla, a spaceship...”

“ I... _what_?” Angella said, her wings fluttering in surprise- and giving her an opportunity to look at her black wing. “ What happened to me?”

“ I will explain as best I can,” Hordak said. “ Catra saved you.”

-

An ancient spaceship, one with a new name, lands at Brightmoon. An angel, with tears of disbelief in her eyes, steps out of it, down the loading ramp.

A daughter and a husband, who cannot believe this either, who are stunned and shocked as the angel, teleport to her, hug her, and bawl, shed the ugly tears of happiness and unexpected joy. A great heroine, standing with the angel's family, weeps too, her tears elegant and perfect, because that's just the kind of person she is, and she hugs the entire family, takes them all into her big arms.

A son-in-law the angel did not have before her long sleep approaches her, an archer and engineer in equal measure, now a prince. He is crying, too. The angel hugs him, and he hugs her, and when she notes his earring- a sign of marriage- she looks at her blushing daughter, and expresses her surprise- of the things Etheria's once-devil told her, he had forgotten the marriage of her daughter.

It is a surprise that grows, when the angel's daughter gently touches her own stomach, and asks the angel how she feels to be a grandmother, revealing a secret only the two soon-to-be parents had known until that moment. The archer hugs his blushing wife, and the king's shock is matched by the queen's and the heroine's, shock that soon turns to near-babbling joy.

A scientist stays on the ship, to give them their privacy. She is still so clumsy with people... but she's getting better at it. She tries to work out the portal mechanics, curious as to how they might use the knowledge in the future... or, at least, prevent such a portal from hurting anyone else, ever again.

And on the ship's ramp, watching the happy reunions and revelations, the man and the woman who once led the Etherian Horde- and more than once tried to kill each other- clasp hands, nod, and become something like friends, bonding over this act of redemption... and feel something like peace enter their hearts, never to leave again.

-

When all the happy tears have been shed- as Angella is herded inside- Adora comes over to Catra, her face half-shocked with joy, and half-shocked with _anger_. Melog is with her, making high-pitched yelps of distress and anger and maybe a little bit hungry, Catra can feel through the psychic link.

Catra knows what's coming, and that she deserves it, so she just braces herself for the slap that's she's due.

It never comes. Adora manages to do something _much_ more hurtful to Catra; she pauses in front of her, trembles for a second, and then _bawls_ , sobbing like a kid, crying so hard she can't talk, nothing like her elegant tears before Angella.

Well, _shit_ ; that breaks Catra open too, and she cries all over her, she hugs her girl as Melog yelps at both of them. They manage to stagger back to their room, but it will take both of them a few hours to calm down enough to have even a paper conversation about this.

Adora is so _furious_ when the wave of relief finally ends that Catra is exiled to the couch for a week. For once, the paper is for Adora, who is so _mad_ at her she almost can't speak... but they work it out.

It's okay. There is one advantage to the horrifying road they took to get here; after all they've done to each other, all that they have already forgiven each other, Catra knows that Adora won't leave her, and so she is content to keep to the couch for a week, Melog serving as a blanket.

Her sleep is dreamless now, and she finds the peace of mind to be worth her relationship troubles.

-

Not everything's quite the same as it was. Glimmer's pregnancy is now known to all, as is the name she wants to give the girl- Catra.

( Catra is left speechless at this. They were going to name her Angella... but Angella is alive, now, and so they choose the woman who brought Glimmer's mother back to her. Catra argued against it, that she was also the one who had _taken_ that mother in the first place... but she is shot down. There will be a royal daughter of Brightmoon named Catra, and she doesn't know how she feels about that, except maybe a little... _awed_.)

Angella's left wing will always be black; when the Moonstone fails to repair the wing, Adora shifts into She-Ra for the first time in over a year, and also fails to heal her. It is something beyond the power of magic to change.

Angella doesn't care. She's back. She would lose the wings for that, and such is not the price she has paid; despite its new, edgier coloring, the wing works fine. Her husband is alive, her daughter is alive, a grandchild is on the way, and she is no longer trapped in the remnants of a world gone mad; all Angella's dreams are fulfilled.

Glimmer doesn't care either, nor does Micah; after all that has happened, the family is whole again, and the one black wing is kind of cool-looking, in Catra's opinion. It gives Angella a depth to her appearance.

She and Hordak talk regularly, now. They talk of many things; of building the Fright Zone by himself, of dismantling it with the help of his brothers when Scorpia wished to rebuild her stolen kingdom. Of other planets and other worlds, of the absurdity that was Space Captain Sea Hawk, and his latest daring adventures against one of Prime's remnant fleets, the _Solar Sailor_ wrecking a dreadnought that was carrying weapons with which to annihilate a world, a world now safe.

Sea Hawk saved a world, and not for the first time. Huh. The future was a weird place to live.

And in time, she asks Hordak for help making something, a thing he creates and sends to her, made out of pieces of the former Fright Zone, topped with a shard of the old Sword of Protection, which Adora had given Entrapta for her experiments.

( For all that the Sword had turned out to be a weapon of evil, Adora had done great good with it... heh. Much like Catra, whom Adora had cajoled into decency after a lifetime of evil.)

He charges her nothing. “ Call it a wedding present,” his writing says.

And the day, three months later, arrives, and Catra knows it is time.

-

Alone in her and Adora's shared room, Catra pins the cloak with Brightmoon's symbol on her shoulder, where it will stay all her life. Catra has betrayed and changed sides so often... but now, now she will learn to be loyal, to stick with a choice, come hell or high water.

When she steps out, Adora sees it, and smiles, breath hitching as she tries not to sob.

“ Hey, Catra,” she says. Her eyes shine with unshed tears. “ New look?”

“ Hey, Adora,” Catra says, and does not bother to hide her own happy tears. After all this time, Brightmoon has finally taught her to accept her own feelings, has gentled her enough to cry. “ It feels right, now.”

Adora kisses her. Catra no longer wonders if she deserves it.

( Miracles are such small things, at day's end.)

“ Hey, Adora?” Catra says, after the kiss. There is a box in her pocket- Hordak's gift. The velvet box holds a ring, a ring so beautiful that her return letter to him was just embarassing gushing.

( They are friends, finally. It is possibly the strangest miracle, in these wonder-stuffed days; that she and Hordak can see each other, and be glad to do so, past all the shadows and harm they have inflicted on each other.)

“ Yes?” Adora asks, and Catra takes a moment, just to _look_ at her, to see the woman she loves.

“ I... I have a question for you,” Catra says, and kneels, taking the box out of her pocket.

Adora's shocked joy, the way she clasps her hands before her face, her widened eyes- this is a happy memory that will be with Catra until the day she dies.

“ Will you marry me?” Catra says, and her voice breaks, just the littlest bit.

“ Yes, yes, yes,” Adora manages to sob, and the ring in Catra's trembling hands fits her finger perfectly.

( They will be married at Brightmoon, in a ceremony Angella will conduct personally; Hordak will be Catra's best man, as Glimmer will be Adora's.)

**Author's Note:**

> ...I don't have words for the joy this series has sparked in me, and that ENDING... few show can claim that their final season is their best, but She-Ra can.
> 
> Thank you, Noelle Stevenson, for this brilliant work.
> 
> Here is my tribute and my idea of how things go after the show ends; the days of their peaceful lives.


End file.
